Espoits challenge sports clichés
BY IAN VAN ORDEN A N D SAM WESTON
Riot Games
As the NHL and NBA playoffs rage on,
a different sporting spectacle quietly
continues its slow rise: esports.
Now hold up, esports? “ That’ s, not
a sport! They just play video gam es.”
W ell, th a t’ s the point! W ith our
increased use of technology these days,
it’s no wonder that kids and adults have
begun to spectate competitive video
game competitions.
If you want to argue legitim acy of
these being enjoyable and comparable
to a competition such as the hockey or
basketball playoffs, just watch one of
the many tournaments with thousands
of dollars up for grabs.
Call of Duty, Dota 2, H alo, Sm ite,
Overwatch and even sport games such
as NBA 2K have become the newest
form of sporting entertainment for our
generation. However, two games reign
supreme in the esport realm: Counter
Strike: Global Offensive and League of
Legends.
Arguably the most prevalent esport
today, “ League o f Le g e n d s” was
released in 2009 to much acclaim .
Based on the popular “ W arcraft III”
mod Defense of the Ancients, it’ s hard
to deny that League is responsible for
bringin g M ultiplayer O nline Battle
A ren as (M O B As), to m ain stream
attention. Since its release, League has
become the most played game in the
world, boasting 100 m illion monthly
players.
For context, a report by Forbes stated
the next closest MOBA is DOTA 2, which
sees 13 m illion monthly players, and
Activision, one of the largest publishers
in the game industry, boasts 55 million
players across all their games, including
major titles such as Call of Duty and
Destiny.
League esports started with simple,
fan-organized tournaments, but that
didn’ t last long. In 2011, Riot Games
announced the first official competitive
season. The Season One Championship
was held at Dreamhack summer 2011,
drawing more than 100,000 concurrent
Team Solo Mid, a North American League of Legends team, prepares to face off against long time rival Cloud 9 during week
1 of the Summer Split. TSM emerged victorious in a 2-0 sweep.
viewers, and it certainly didn’ t end
there.
Last year marked the sixth world
championship for League of Legends,
which drew 43 million viewers.
June 2 saw the beginning of the 2017
Summer Split for the North American
leagu e, m arking th e b e g in n in g of
the second half of the regular season
following the Spring Split earlier this
year. Each team will vie for one of three
available seeds for the upcoming World
Championship.
Much like regular sports, esports are
defined by the players.
Names like Faker, Sneaky, Mithy and
Uzi have become the esports equivalents
of Tom Brady, Lebron Jam es, Sidney
Crosby and Kris Bryant.
In addition to watching them play
during professional m atches, m any
players also stream in their off time,
allowing fans more access to them than
regular sports players.
Perhaps due to this accessibility,
it has become very im pactful when a
player chooses to retire. During the
2015 W orld C ham p ion sh ip , Dyrus,
a w ell-know n player for the North
American team TSM, or Team Solo Mid,
announced his retirem ent after his
team lost their final game; The reaction
from the crowd was emotional, with the
crowd chanting his name.
I f you w atch ed any o f T B S’S
programming this past summer, you
may have seen a video game being
advertised and played called CS:G O .
ELEAGUE, a new com petitive CS:GO
league began on the network which has
become the first of its kind on cable
television. This league is historic for
e-sports and sports as we know it. Thè
popular video game that has kept kids
in their room for hours on end now has
a spotlight on national television.
Why put a videogame on national TV
anyway?
Valve made Counter Strike, a popular
PC game that has been around since the
early 2000s. It is regarded as one of, if
not the greatest, first person shooter
game in history and largely cements
the opinion of PC gafhing’ s superiority
over console gaming.
As tim e went on, the com petitive
scene began to explode and viewership
for major tournam ents has reached
hundreds of thousands of people on
the popular streaming site Twitch and
offering millions of dollars in prize pool
winnings to the champion.
This past weekend, the season 5 ESL
Pro League finals took place irt Dallas,
Texas and showcased powerhouse
EU team s G2 and Fnatic alongside
NA squads Team Liquid and Cloud 9.
Watching these games is just like any
sport that one watches; players such
as Ken'nyS, Guardian, Snax, Hiko and
Qlafmeister are the game’ s superstars.
Someday soon you’ll begin to see things
such as Fatheads of these people on
bedroom walls.
Now we understand it’s not an athletic
competition and calling them athletes
is seen as misleading, but be prepared
for that term to be used a lot more with
these players. W ith the growth and
hype centering around these new forms
of competitive entertainment, it’s only
a m atter of time before th at’ s their
official title.
Don’ t worry, you can keep watching
your football on Sundays, but when a
kid decides to tune into Twitch to see
the finals of the next major J u s t know
they will be just as excited as you are
to see their favorite team compete for
that a title.
Clackamas Print JUNE 7,2017 theclackamasprintcom 9